The adventures of Varahran in India, and the enlargement of his dominions in that direction by the act of the Indian king, who is said so have voluntarily ceded to him Mekran and Scinde in return for his services against the Emperor of China, cannot be regarded as historical. Scarcely more so is the story that Persia had no musicians in his day, for which reason he applied to the Indian monarch, and obtained from him twelve thousand performers, who became the ancestors of the Lurs. After a reign which is variously estimated at nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-three years, Varahran died by a death which would have been thought incredible, had not a repetition of the disaster, on the traditional site, been witnessed by an English traveller in comparatively recent times. The Persian writers state that Varahran was engaged in the hunt of the wild ass, when his horse came suddenly upon a deep pool, or spring of water, and either plunged into it or threw his rider into it, with the result that Varahran sank and never reappeared. The supposed scene of the incident is a valley between Ispahan and Shiraz. Here, in 1810, an English soldier lost his life through bathing in the spring traditionally declared to be that which proved fatal to Varahran. The coincidence has caused the general acceptance of a tale which would probably have been otherwise regarded as altogether romantic and mythical.
The coins of Varahran V. are chiefly remarkable for their rude and coarse workmanship and for the number of the mints from which they were issued. The mint-marks include Ctesiphon, Ecbatana, Isaphan, Arbela, Ledan, Nehavend, Assyria, Chuzistan, Media, and Kerman, or Carmania. The ordinary legend is, upon the obverse, _Mazdisn bag Varahran malha,_ or _Mazdisn bag Varahran rasti malha,_ and on the reverse, "Yavahran," together with a mint-mark. The head-dress has the mural crown in front and behind, but interposes between these two detached fragments a crescent and a circle, emblems, no doubt, of the sun and moon gods. The reverse shows the usual fire-altar, with guards, or attendants, watching it. The king's head appears in the flame upon the altar. (PLATE XXI. Fig. 2).
According to the Oriental writers, Varahran V. was one of the best of the Sassanian princes. He carefully administered justice among his numerous subjects, remitted arrears of taxation, gave pensions to men of science and letters, encouraged agriculture, and was extremely liberal in the relief of poverty and distress. His faults were, that he was over-generous and over-fond of amusements, especially of the chase. The nickname of "Bahram-Gur," by which he is known to the Orientals, marks this last-named predilection, transferring to him, as it does, the name of the animal which was the especial object of his pursuit. But he was almost equally fond of dancing and of games. Still it does not appear that his inclination for amusements rendered him neglectful of public affairs, or at all interfered with his administration of the State. Persia is said to have been in a most flourishing condition during his reign. He may not have gained all the successes that are ascribed to him; but he was undoubtedly an active prince, brave, energetic, and clear-sighted. He judiciously brought the Roman war to a close when a new and formidable enemy appeared on his north-eastern frontier; he wisely got rid of the Armenian difficulty, which had been a stumbling block in the way of his predecessors for two hundred years; he inflicted a check on the aggressive Tatars, which indisposed them to renew hostilities with Persia for a quarter of a century. It would seem that he did not much appreciate art but he encouraged learning, and did his best to advance science.